Generally, gels are widely used in various fields such as the field of industry, the field of daily commodities, the field of the environment, the medical field, the field of cosmetics, the field of food, the field of agriculture, fields related to living organisms and the analytical field, by, for example, adding a gel to a paint, a resin or the like in the fields of paints or resins to adjust fluidity, or by gelating waste oil, waste liquid, waste water or the like to a solid material to prevent water pollution, or the like. “Gel” refers to a structure in which a fluid such as water and an organic solvent is contained in a three-dimensional mesh structure formed by a chemical substance. Here, when the fluid is an organic solvent, the gel is referred to as an organogel, and when the fluid is water, the gel is referred to as a hydrogel.
In recent years, application of a gel to a technique such as sensing and screening of a living organism-related sample or an environmental sample has been investigated. In this case, gelation in an aqueous environment, namely a hydrogel or a hydrogelation agent, needs further development.
As a technique related to a hydrogel or a hydrogelation agent, a hydrogelation agent consisting of a specific glycoside amino acid derivative (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 2003-327949 and 2005-13174), a hydrogel manufactured from a specific 2′-deoxyuridine derivative (for example, see JP-A No. 2005-194257) and a hydrogelation agent containing a specific benzamide derivative as an active ingredient (for example, see JP-A No. 2007-217551) are known.
As a compound expressing gelation activity with respect to an aqueous sample, a substituted aromatic compound of a specific structure having a hydrophilic portion located at the frame part of the molecule and a hydrophobic portion located at the central part of a molecule is known (for example, see the pamphlet of WO 2010/101147).